electionthe formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. It is important to distinguish between the form and the substance of elections. In some cases, electoral forms are present but the substance of an election is missing, as when voters do not have a free and genuine choice between at least two alternatives. Most countries hold elections in at least the formal sense, but in many of them the elections are not competitive (e.g., all but one party may be forbidden to contest) or the electoral situation is in other respects highly compromised.

History of elections

Although elections were used in ancient Athens, in Rome, and in the selection of popes and Holy Roman emperors, the origins of elections in the contemporary world lie in the gradual emergence of representative government in Europe and North America beginning in the 17th century. At that time, the holistic notion of representation characteristic of the Middle Ages was transformed into a more individualistic conception, one that made the individual the critical unit to be counted. For example, the British Parliament was no longer seen as representing estates, corporations, and vested interests but was rather perceived as standing for actual human beings. The movement abolishing the so-called “rotten boroughs”—electoral districts of small population controlled by a single person or family—that culminated in the Reform Act of 1832 (one of three major Reform Bills in the 19th century in Britain that expanded the size of the electorate) was a direct consequence of this individualistic conception of representation. Once governments were believed to derive their powers from the consent of the governed and expected to seek that consent regularly, it remained to decide precisely who was to be included among the governed whose consent was necessary. Advocates of full democracy favoured the establishment of universal adult suffrage. Across western Europe and North America, adult male suffrage was ensured almost everywhere by 1920, though woman suffrage was not established until somewhat later (e.g., 1928 in Britain, 1944 in France, 1949 in Belgium, and 1971 in Switzerland).

Although it is common to equate representative government and elections with democracy, and although competitive elections under universal suffrage are one of democracy’s defining characteristics, universal suffrage is not a necessary condition of competitive electoral politics. An electorate may be limited by formal legal requirements—as was the case before universal adult suffrage—or it may be limited by the failure of citizens to exercise their right to vote. In many countries with free elections, large numbers of citizens do not cast ballots. For example, in Switzerland and the United States, fewer than half the electorate vote in most elections. Although legal or self-imposed exclusion can dramatically affect public policy and even undermine the legitimacy of a government, it does not preclude decision making by election, provided that voters are given genuine alternatives among which to choose.

During the 18th century, access to the political arena depended largely on membership in an aristocracy, and participation in elections was regulated mainly by local customs and arrangements. Although both the American and French revolutions declared every citizen formally equal to every other, the vote remained an instrument of political power possessed by very few.

Even with the implementation of universal suffrage, the ideal of “one person, one vote” was not achieved in all countries. Systems of plural voting were maintained in some countries, giving certain social groups an electoral advantage. For example, in the United Kingdom, university graduates and owners of businesses in constituencies other than those in which they lived could cast more than one ballot until 1948. Before World War I, both Austria and Prussia had three classes of weighted votes that effectively kept electoral power in the hands of the upper social strata. Until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 in the United States, legal barriers and intimidation effectively barred most African Americans—especially those in the South—from being able to cast ballots in elections.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the increased use of competitive mass elections in western Europe had the purpose and effect of institutionalizing the diversity that had existed in the countries of that region. However, mass elections had quite different purposes and consequences under the one-party communist regimes of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the period from the end of World War II to 1989–90. Although these governments held elections, the contests were not competitive, as voters usually had only the choice of voting for or against the official candidate. Indeed, elections in these countries were similar to the 19th-century Napoleonic plebiscites, which were intended to demonstrate the unity rather than the diversity of the people. Dissent in eastern Europe could be registered by crossing out the name of the candidate on the ballot, as several million citizens in the Soviet Union did in each election before 1989; however, because secret voting did not exist in these countries, this practice invited reprisals. Nonvoting was another form of protest, especially as local communist activists were under extreme pressure to achieve nearly a 100 percent turnout. Not all elections in eastern Europe followed the Soviet model. For example, in Poland more names appeared on the ballot than there were offices to fill, and some degree of electoral choice was thus provided.

In sub-Saharan Africa, competitive elections based on universal suffrage were introduced in three distinct periods. In the 1950s and ’60s, a number of countries held elections following decolonization. Although many of them reverted to authoritarian forms of rule, there were exceptions (e.g., Botswana and Gambia). In the late 1970s, elections were introduced in a smaller number of countries when some military dictatorships were dissolved (e.g., in Ghana and Nigeria) and other countries in Southern Africa underwent decolonization (e.g., Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe). Beginning in the early 1990s, the end of the Cold War and the reduction of military and economic aid from developed countries brought about democratization and competitive elections in more than a dozen African countries, including Benin, Mali, South Africa, and Zambia.

Competitive elections in Latin America also were introduced in phases. In the century after 1828, for example, elections were held in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay, though all but Chile reverted to authoritarianism. Additional countries held elections in the period dating roughly 1943 to 1962, though again many did not retain democratic governments. Beginning in the mid 1970s, competitive elections were introduced gradually throughout most of Latin America.

In Asia, competitive elections were held following the end of World War II, in many cases as a result of decolonization (e.g., India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines), though once again the restoration of authoritarianism was commonplace. Beginning in the 1970s, competitive elections were reintroduced in a number of countries, including the Philippines and South Korea. With the exception of Turkey and Israel, competitive elections in the Middle East are rare.

Authoritarian regimes often have used elections as a way to achieve a degree of popular legitimacy. Dictatorships may hold elections in cases where no substantive opposition is remotely feasible (e.g., because opposition forces have been repressed) or when economic factors favour the regime. Even when opposition parties are allowed to participate, they may face intimidation by the government and its allies, which thereby precludes the effective mobilization of potential supporters. In other cases, a regime may postpone an election if there is a significant chance that it will lose. In addition, it has been a common practice of authoritarian regimes to intervene once balloting has begun by intimidating voters (e.g., through physical attacks) and by manipulating the count of votes that have been freely cast.

Functions of elections

Elections make a fundamental contribution to democratic governance. Because direct democracy—a form of government in which political decisions are made directly by the entire body of qualified citizens—is impractical in most modern societies, democratic government must be conducted through representatives. Elections enable voters to select leaders and to hold them accountable for their performance in office. Accountability can be undermined when elected leaders do not care whether they are reelected or when, for historical or other reasons, one party or coalition is so dominant that there is effectively no choice for voters among alternative candidates, parties, or policies. Nevertheless, the possibility of controlling leaders by requiring them to submit to regular and periodic elections helps to solve the problem of succession in leadership and thus contributes to the continuation of democracy. Moreover, where the electoral process is competitive and forces candidates or parties to expose their records and future intentions to popular scrutiny, elections serve as forums for the discussion of public issues and facilitate the expression of public opinion. Elections thus provide political education for citizens and ensure the responsiveness of democratic governments to the will of the people. They also serve to legitimize the acts of those who wield power, a function that is performed to some extent even by elections that are noncompetitive.

Elections also reinforce the stability and legitimacy of the political community. Like national holidays commemorating common experiences, elections link citizens to each other and thereby confirm the viability of the polity. As a result, elections help to facilitate social and political integration.

Finally, elections serve a self-actualizing purpose by confirming the worth and dignity of individual citizens as human beings. Whatever other needs voters may have, participation in an election serves to reinforce their self-esteem and self-respect. Voting gives people an opportunity to have their say and, through expressing partisanship, to satisfy their need to feel a sense of belonging. Even nonvoting satisfies the need of some people to express their alienation from the political community. For precisely these reasons, the long battle for the right to vote and the demand for equality in electoral participation can be viewed as the manifestation of a profound human craving for personal fulfillment.

Whether held under authoritarian or democratic regimes, elections have a ritualistic aspect. Elections and the campaigns preceding them are dramatic events that are accompanied by rallies, banners, posters, buttons, headlines, and television coverage, all of which call attention to the importance of participation in the event. Candidates, political parties, and interest groups representing diverse objectives invoke the symbols of nationalism or patriotism, reform or revolution, past glory or future promise. Whatever the peculiar national, regional, or local variations, elections are events that, by arousing emotions and channeling them toward collective symbols, break the monotony of daily life and focus attention on the common fate.

Types of elections

Elections of officeholders

Electorates have only a limited power to determine government policies. Most elections do not directly establish public policy but instead confer on a small group of officials the authority to make policy (through laws and other devices) on behalf of the electorate as a whole.

Political parties are central to the election of officeholders. The selection and nomination of candidates, a vital first stage of the electoral process, generally lies in the hands of political parties; an election serves only as the final process in the recruitment to political office. The party system thus can be regarded as an extension of the electoral process. Political parties provide the pool of talent from which candidates are drawn, and they simplify and direct the electoral choice and mobilize the electorate at the registration and election stage.

The predominance of political parties over the electoral process has not gone unchallenged. For example, some municipalities in the United States and Canada regularly hold nonpartisan elections (in which party affiliations are not formally indicated on ballots) in order to limit the influence of political parties. Nonpartisanship in the United States started as a reform movement in the early 20th century and was intended in part to isolate local politics from politics at the state and national levels. During the last decades of the 20th century, the significance of political parties declined in many democratic countries as “candidate-centred” politics emerged and campaigning and accountability became highly personalized.

Recall elections

Like most populist innovations, the practice of recalling officeholders is an attempt to minimize the influence of political parties on representatives. Widely adopted in the United States, the recall is designed to ensure that an elected official will act in the interests of his constituency rather than in the interests of his political party or according to his own conscience. The actual instrument of recall is usually a letter of resignation signed by the elected representative before assuming office. During the term of office, the letter can be evoked by a quorum of constituents if the representative’s performance fails to meet their expectations.

In the United States the recall has been used successfully against various types of officials, including judges, mayors, and even state governors. Although in practice the recall is not used extensively, even in jurisdictions where it is provided for constitutionally, it has been used to remove governors in North Dakota (1921) and California (2003). Following a bitter partisan fight between Democrats and Republicans over the rights of workers to bargain collectively, Wisconsin experienced in 2011 the single largest recall attempt in U.S. history; six Republicans and three Democrats in the 33-member state Senate faced a recall vote, though only two senators—both Republicans—were defeated.

Referendum and initiative

The referendum and initiative are elections in which the preferences of the community are assessed on a particular issue; whereas the former are instigated by those in government, the latter are initiated by groups of electors. As forms of direct democracy, such devices reflect a reluctance to entrust full decision-making power to elected representatives. However, because voter turnout in these types of elections often is quite low, voting in referenda and initiatives may be more easily influenced by political parties and interest groups than voting in officeholder elections.

Referenda often are used for bond issues to raise and spend public money, though occasionally they are used to decide certain social or moral issues—such as restrictions on abortion or divorce—on which the elected bodies are deemed to possess no special competence. Referenda may be legislatively binding or merely consultative, but even consultative referenda are likely to be considered legislative mandates. Referenda and initiatives at the national level have been used most heavily in Switzerland, which has held about half the world’s national referenda. Evidence from Switzerland has shown that referenda brought to a vote by legislators are more likely to succeed than those initiated by the public. For example, about half of all laws and nearly three-fourths of all constitutional amendments initiated by the Swiss government have been passed, whereas only about one-tenth of all citizen initiatives have been successful. Switzerland uses referenda and initiatives extensively at the local and regional levels as well, as does the United States. Near the end of the 20th century, referenda were employed more frequently around the world than in earlier years; this was particularly true in Europe, where referenda were held to decide public policy on voting systems, treaties and peace agreements (e.g., the Treaty on European Union), and social issues.

Plebiscite

Plebiscites are elections held to decide two paramount types of political issues: government legitimacy and the nationality of territories contested between governments. In the former case, the incumbent government, seeking a popular mandate as a basis for legitimacy, employs a plebiscite to establish its right to speak for the nation. Plebiscites of this nature are thought to establish a direct link between the rulers and the ruled; intermediaries such as political parties are bypassed, and for this reason plebiscites are sometimes considered antithetical to pluralism and competitive politics. Following the French Revolution in 1789, the plebiscite was widely popular in France, rooted as it was in the ideas of nationalism and popular sovereignty. In the 20th century, totalitarian regimes have employed plebiscites to legitimize their rule.

Plebiscites also have been used as a device for deciding the nationality of territories. For example, after World War I the League of Nations proposed 11 such plebiscites, the most successful of which was held in 1935 in the Saar, until the end of the war a state of Germany that had been administered by the League for 15 years; its inhabitants chose overwhelmingly to return to Germany rather than to become a part of France. This use of plebiscites, however, is relatively rare, because it requires the prior agreement of the governments involved on an issue that is usually very contentious.

Systems of vote counting

Individual votes are translated into collective decisions by a wide variety of rules of counting that voters and leaders have accepted as legitimate prior to the election. These rules may in principle call for plurality voting, which requires only that the winner have the greatest number of votes; absolute majority voting, which requires that the winner receive more than half the total number of votes; extraordinary majority voting, which requires some higher proportion for the winner (e.g., a two-thirds majority); proportional voting, which requires that a political party receive some threshold to receive representation; or unanimity.

Legislative elections

A wide variety of electoral systems exist for apportioning legislative seats. In practice, legislative electoral systems can be classified into three broad categories: plurality and majority systems (collectively known as majoritarian systems); proportional systems; and hybrid, or semiproportional, systems. The electoral system is an important variable in explaining public policy decisions, because it determines the number of political parties able to receive representation and thereby participate in government.

Plurality and majority systems

The plurality system is the simplest means of determining the outcome of an election. To win, a candidate need only poll more votes than any other single opponent; he need not, as required by the majority formula, poll more votes than the combined opposition. The more candidates contesting a constituency seat, the greater the probability that the winning candidate will receive only a minority of the votes cast. Countries using the plurality formula for national legislative elections include Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States. Countries with plurality systems usually have had two main parties.

Under the majority system, the party or candidate winning more than 50 percent of the vote in a constituency is awarded the contested seat. A difficulty in systems with the absolute-majority criterion is that it may not be satisfied in contests in which there are more than two candidates. Several variants of the majority formula have been developed to address this problem. In Australia the alternative, or preferential, vote is used in lower-house elections. Voters rank the candidates on an alternative-preference ballot. If a majority is not achieved by first-preference votes, the weakest candidate is eliminated, and that candidate’s votes are redistributed to the other candidates according to the second preference on the ballot. This redistributive process is repeated until one candidate has collected a majority of the votes. In France a double-ballot system is employed for National Assembly elections. If no candidate secures a majority in the first round of elections, another round is required. In the second round, only those candidates securing the votes of at least one-eighth of the registered electorate in the first round may compete, and the candidate securing a plurality of the popular vote in the second round is declared the winner. Some candidates eligible for the second round withdraw their candidacy and endorse one of the leading candidates. In contrast to the two-party norm of the plurality system, France has what some analysts have called a “two-bloc” system, in which the main parties of the left and the main parties of the right compete against each other in the first round of an election to be the representative of their respective ideological group and then ally with one another to maximize their bloc’s representation in the second round. An infrequently used variant is the supplementary-vote system, which was instituted for London mayoral elections. Under this system, voters rank their top two preferences; in the event that no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, all ballots not indicating the top two vote getters as either a first or a second choice are discarded, and the combination of first and second preferences is used to determine the winner. Majority formulas usually are applied only within single-member electoral constituencies.

The majority and the plurality formulas do not always distribute legislative seats in proportion to the share of the popular vote won by the competing parties. Both formulas tend to reward the strongest party disproportionately and to handicap weaker parties, though these parties may escape the inequities of the system if their support is regionally concentrated. For example, in national elections in Britain in 2001, the Labour Party captured more than three-fifths of the seats in the House of Commons, even though it won barely two-fifths of the popular vote; in contrast, the Conservative Party won one-fourth of the seats with nearly one-third of the vote. Third-party representation varied considerably; whereas the Liberal Democrats, whose support was spread throughout the country, captured 8 percent of the seats with more than 18 percent of the vote, the Plaid Cymru, whose support is concentrated wholly in Wales, won 0.7 percent of the vote and 0.7 percent of the seats. The plurality formula usually, though not always, distorts the distribution of seats more than the majority system.

Proportional representation

Proportional representation requires that the distribution of seats broadly be proportional to the distribution of the popular vote among competing political parties. It seeks to overcome the disproportionalities that result from majority and plurality formulas and to create a representative body that reflects the distribution of opinion within the electorate. Because of the use of multimember constituencies in proportional representation, parties with neither a majority nor a plurality of the popular vote can still win legislative representation. Consequentially, the number of political parties represented in the legislature often is large; for example, in Israel there are usually more than 10 parties in the Knesset.

Although approximated in many systems, proportionality can never be perfectly realized. Not surprisingly, the outcomes of proportional systems usually are more proportional than those of plurality or majority systems. Nevertheless, a number of factors can generate disproportional outcomes even under proportional representation. The single most important factor determining the actual proportionality of a proportional system is the “district magnitude”—that is, the number of candidates that an individual constituency elects. The larger the number of seats per electoral district, the more proportional the outcome. A second important factor is the specific formula used to translate votes into seats. There are two basic types of formula: single transferable vote and party-list proportional representation.

Single transferable vote

Developed in the 19th century in Denmark and in Britain, the single transferable vote formula—or Hare system, after one of its English developers, Thomas Hare—employs a ballot that allows the voter to rank candidates in order of preference. When the ballots are counted, any candidate receiving the necessary quota of first preference votes—calculated as one plus the number of votes divided by the number of seats plus one—is awarded a seat. In the electoral calculations, votes received by a winning candidate in excess of the quota are transferred to other candidates according to the second preference marked on the ballot. Any candidate who then achieves the necessary quota is also awarded a seat. This process is repeated, with subsequent surpluses also being transferred, until all the remaining seats have been awarded. Five-member constituencies are considered optimal for the operation of the single transferable vote system.

Because it involves the aggregation of ranked preferences, the single transferable vote formula necessitates complex electoral computations. This complexity, as well as the fact that it limits the influence of political parties, probably accounts for its infrequent use; it has been used in Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Malta and in the selection of the Australian and South African senates. The characteristic of the Hare formula that distinguishes it from other proportional representation formulas is its emphasis on candidates, not parties. The party affiliation of the candidates has no bearing on the computations. The success of minor parties varies considerably; small centrist parties usually benefit from the vote transfers, but small extremist parties usually are penalized.

Party-list proportional representation

The basic difference between the single transferable vote formula and list systems—which predominate in elections in western Europe and Latin America—is that, in the latter, voters generally choose among party-compiled lists of candidates rather than among individual candidates. Although voters may have some limited choice among individual candidates, electoral computations are made on the basis of party affiliation, and seats are awarded on the basis of party rather than candidate totals. The seats that a party wins are allocated to its candidates in the order in which they appear on the party list. Several types of electoral formulas are used, but there are two main types: largest-average and greatest-remainder formulas.

In the largest-average formula, the available seats are awarded one at a time to the party with the largest average number of votes as determined by dividing the number of votes won by the party by the number of seats the party has been awarded plus a certain integer, depending upon the method used. Each time a party wins a seat, the divisor for that party increases by the same integer, which thus reduces its chances of winning the next seat. Under all methods, the first seat is awarded to the party with the largest absolute number of votes, since, no seats having been allocated, the average vote total as determined by the formula will be largest for this party. Under the d’Hondt method, named after its Belgian inventor, Victor d’Hondt, the average is determined by dividing the number of votes by the number of seats plus one. Thus, after the first seat is awarded, the number of votes won by that party is divided by two (equal to the initial divisor plus one), and similarly for the party awarded the second seat, and so on. Under the so-called Sainte-Lague Laguë method, developed by Andre Sainte-Lague Laguë of France, only odd numbers are used. After a party has won its first seat, its vote total is divided by three; after it wins subsequent seats, the divisor is increased by two. The d’Hondt formula is used in Austria, Belgium, Finland, and the Netherlands, and the Sainte-Lague Laguë method is used in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

The d’Hondt formula has a slight tendency to overreward large parties and to reduce the ability of small parties to gain legislative representation. In contrast, the Sainte-Lague Laguë method reduces the reward to large parties, and it generally has benefited middle-size parties at the expense of both large and small parties. Proposals have been made to divide lists by fractions (e.g., 1.4, 2.5, etc.) rather than integers to provide the most proportional result possible.

The greatest-remainder method first establishes a quota that is necessary for a party to receive representation. Formulas vary, but they are generally some variation of dividing the total vote in the district by the number of seats. The total popular vote won by each party is divided by the quota, and a seat is awarded as many times as the party total contains the full quota. If all the seats are awarded in this manner, the election is complete. However, such an outcome is unlikely. Seats that are not won by full quotas subsequently are awarded to the parties with the largest remainder of votes after the quota has been subtracted from each party’s total vote for each seat it was awarded. Seats are distributed sequentially to the parties with the largest remainder until all the district’s allocated seats have been awarded.

Minor parties generally fare better under the greatest-remainder formula than under the largest-average formula. The greatest-remainder formula is used in Israel and Luxembourg and for some seats in the Danish Folketing. Prior to 1994 Italy used a special variant of the greatest-remainder formula, called the Imperiali formula, whereby the electoral quota was established by dividing the total popular vote by the number of seats plus two. This modification increased the legislative representation of small parties but led to a greater distortion of the proportional ideal.

The proportionality of outcomes also can be diluted by the imposition of an electoral threshold that requires a political party to exceed some minimum percentage of the vote to receive representation. Designed to limit the political success of small extremist parties, such thresholds can constitute significant obstacles to representation. The threshold varies by country, having been set at 4 percent in Sweden, 5 percent in Germany, and 10 percent in Turkey.

Hybrid systems

In some countries, the majoritarian and proportional systems are combined into what are called mixed-member proportional or additional-members systems. Although there are a number of variants, all mixed-member proportional systems elect some representatives by proportional representation and the remainder by a nonproportional formula. The classic example of the hybrid system is the German Bundestag, which combines the personal link between representatives and voters with proportionality. The German constitution provides for the election of half the country’s parliamentarians by proportional representation and half by simple plurality voting in single-member constituencies. Each voter casts two ballots. The first vote (Erstimme) is cast for an individual to represent a constituency (Wahlkreise); the candidate receiving the most votes wins the election. The second vote (Zweitstimme) is cast for a regional party list. The results of the second vote determine the overall political complexion of the Bundestag. All parties that receive at least 5 percent of the national vote—or win at least three constituencies—are allocated seats on the basis of the percentage of votes that they receive. The votes of parties not receiving representation are reapportioned to the larger parties on the basis of their share of the vote. During the 1990s, a number of countries adopted variants of the German system, including Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and several eastern European countries (e.g., Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine). A hybrid system also was adopted by the British government for devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales. One of the chief differences between mixed-member systems is the percentage of seats allocated by proportional and majoritarian methods. For example, in Italy and Japan, respectively, roughly three-fourths and three-fifths of all seats are apportioned through constituency elections.

A country’s choice of electoral system, like its conception of representation, generally reflects its particular cultural, social, historical, and political circumstances. Majority or plural methods of voting are most likely to be acceptable in relatively stable political cultures. In such cultures, fluctuations in electoral support from one election to the next reduce polarization and encourage political centrism. Thus, the “winner take all” implications of the majority or plurality formulas are not experienced as unduly deprivational or restrictive. In contrast, proportional representation is more likely to be found in societies with traditional ethnic, linguistic, and religious cleavages or in societies that have experienced class and ideological conflicts.

Executive elections

Parliamentary systems

Although some executives still attain their position by heredity, most are now elected. In most parliamentary systems, the head of government is selected by the legislature. To reduce the influence of minor parties over the formation of governments in the Knesset, in 1992 Israel adopted a unique system that called for the direct election of the prime minister by a plurality vote of the public. Owing to the unanticipated further splintering of the political system, however, legislators later voted to restore their role in selecting the prime minister. Parliamentary systems that have, in addition to a prime minister, a less-powerful nonhereditary president have adopted different methods for his election. For example, in Germany the president is selected by both the upper and the lower chamber of the legislature. By contrast, in Ireland the president is elected by a plurality vote of the public.

Presidential and semipresidential systems

In presidential systems and mixed (semipresidential) systems, the head of state is elected independently of the legislature. Several methods of electing presidents have been adopted. In the simplest method, the plurality system, which is used in Mexico and the Philippines, the candidate with the most votes wins election. In France the president is required to win a majority. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast in the first round of balloting, the top two candidates from the first round proceed to the second round, which is held two weeks later. This system also has been used in presidential elections in Ghana, Peru, and Russia; Nicaragua adopted a variant of this model that allows a candidate to avoid a runoff with a minimum of 45 percent of the vote in the first round.

Both the plurality and the majority-decision rules are employed in the election of U.S. presidents, who are elected only indirectly by the public. The composition of the electoral college, which actually selects the president, is determined by a plurality vote taken within each state. Although voters choose between the various presidential candidates, they are in effect choosing the electors who will elect the president by means of a majority vote in the electoral college. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, all of a state’s electoral votes (which are equal in number to its seats in Congress) are awarded to the presidential candidate who gains a plurality of the vote in the state election. It is thus possible for a president to be elected with a minority of the popular vote, as happened in the presidential election of 2000, which George W. Bush won with 500,000 fewer popular votes than Al Gore.

Constituencies: districting and apportionment

The drawing up of constituencies—the subdivisions of the total electorate that send representatives to the local or central assembly—is inextricably linked with questions about the nature of representation and methods of voting. The problem of electoral representation hinges on the question of what is to be represented. As geographic areas, constituencies often contain within their boundaries diverse, and sometimes incompatible, social, economic, religious, or ethnic interests, all of which seek to be represented.

The solution to this problem has been largely historically determined. Where the interests of electors have not been totally incompatible, and where ethnic, religious, social, and economic differences have been relatively free of passionate conflict, as in the Anglo-American countries, geographic areas (electoral districts) have usually been considered the constituency, and the method of counting has been some system of majority or plurality voting. The elected person represents the whole geographic unit, irrespective of internal divisions. In general, such countries have adopted single-seat constituencies, though multimember constituencies are also possible.

In contrast, where the electorate is composed of several minorities, none of which can hope to obtain a majority, or perhaps not even a plurality sufficiently large to obtain representation, the geographic district can be regarded only as an administrative unit for counting votes. The effective constituency is the group of electors that can be identified as having voted for a given candidate. In this case, election is usually by some method of proportional counting whereby any candidate, party, or group receiving a requisite number of votes is entitled to a proportionate number of representatives.

The drawing up, or delimitation, of electoral districts is linked with differing conceptions of representation, and conceptions of representation in turn are linked with alternative methods of vote counting. The virtues and vices of different electoral arrangements have long been debated by framers of constitutions and advocates of electoral reform. Although proportional systems treating electoral districts as merely administrative conveniences and providing for multiple representation are believed to approximate more closely the one person, one vote principle of democratic theory than do single-member geographic constituencies providing for majority or plurality voting, they are sometimes criticized for contributing to governmental instability and political stalemate. Critics have cited the “immobilist” regimes of Weimar Germany (1919–33), the French Fourth Republic (1946–58), and post-World War II Italy—all of which had proportional-representation systems and frequent changes of government—as examples. Against this, however, there are numerous instances of politically stable democracies that use proportional representation—e.g., Germany since World War II, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In any case, it is doubtful that any other method of electoral districting and vote counting would be satisfactory in countries with many interests seeking representation.

Furthermore, representation of geographic constituencies by majority or plurality voting disguises many differences in the electorate’s composition and preferences. In single-member, majority-vote electoral districts, the minority that loses at the polls may feel unrepresented. It is even a precarious assumption that the majority itself is truly represented, as it is likely to be a loose coalition of diverse interests, and no single representative can usually do justice to the diversity of interests involved. In general, therefore, the representative, insofar as he is responsive, is more likely to play the role of broker between his district’s diverse interests than to fill the role of spokesman for the district as a whole.

Whatever the role of the representative, and however electoral units are conceived—as geographic areas with stable, compatible interests or as purely administrative areas for the purpose of vote counting—districting must be distinguished from apportionment. In general, if the district is considered only an administrative unit for counting votes, its boundaries can be drawn rather arbitrarily without injustice. The district as such has no stakes of its own to be represented. On the other hand, if the district is considered a true constituency, in the sense that it has unique interests that can be geographically and, as a result, socially defined, districting should not be arbitrary. The area involved should at least be contiguous and compact so that its presumed interests can be fairly recognized.

The difficulty in treating geographic areas as genuine constituencies is that internal transformations in their economic and social structure may make their historical boundaries obsolete. As a result, historical areas serving as electoral districts—such as provinces, states, and counties—may no longer constitute genuine communities of interest to be represented. As these districts become increasingly diverse, it is often difficult to identify particular constituency interests, and representatives find it increasingly impossible to be responsive to constituency wishes or needs.

Problems of apportionment, in contrast to problems of districting, stem from efforts to reconcile the territorial and population bases of representation. If geographic areas, for instance, are assumed to have an equal right to be represented because the area is considered to be a viable constituency, malapportionment in terms of population is inevitable. In the United States, for example, the state of California, with a population of more than 30 million people, has the same number of senators as Wyoming, which has a population of roughly 500,000. This kind of “constitutional malapportionment” must not be confused with the “electoral malapportionment” that defies the one person, one vote principle of equal representation. The latter is usually the result of population shifts.

During the 19th and much of the 20th century, failure to reapportion the number of seats in representative bodies to take account of population changes resulting from increasing urbanization generally benefitted rural electoral districts. More recently, the migration of people from cities to the suburbs has led to possible underrepresentation of suburban populations as against urban ones. From a political rather than a legal perspective, malapportionment is usually considered “undemocratic” because it results in the overrepresentation or underrepresentation of certain sectors of the population and, consequently, may eventuate in public policies not acceptable to the majority of the electorate.

Apportionment is often a complex problem. In particular, it is often unclear how best to define the population among which a specified number of legislative seats are to be apportioned. Any of several distinct quantities—the total population, the number of citizens of voting age, the number of registered voters, or the number of actual voters—may serve as bases of apportionment. If a constant relationship existed between these groupings, apportionment would not be difficult. In practice, however, because of variations in registration and voting turnout, the relationship is not constant.

Constitutional or electoral malapportionment must not be confused with gerrymandering—a form of arbitrary districting used to benefit the party that at a given time controls the apportionment process. Gerrymandering takes its name from the governor of Massachusetts Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814), who recognized the possibility of influencing electoral outcomes by manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts (critics charged that one of the districts he designed resembled a salamander). Gerrymandering involves concentrating large percentages of the opposite party’s votes into a few districts and drawing the boundaries of the other districts in such a way that the gerrymandering party wins them all, even though the majority, or, in multiparty elections, the plurality, is relatively small. A widely cited example of gerrymandering occurred in Northern Ireland, where districts were drawn to maximize the representation of Unionists prior to the imposition of direct rule by the British Parliament in 1972.

Gerrymandering is a common political tactic throughout the world. Political parties prefer “safe” districts to those that are competitive. By not contesting seriously in the other party’s safe districts, by maintaining one’s own safe districts, and by carving competitive districts up in such a way that one’s own party is favoured (generally through legislative apportionment), party managers advance their own party’s interests but often harm other social, economic, and political interests that need representation. Although gerrymandering is common and generally regarded as legal, gerrymandering based on race has been ruled unconstitutional in the United States.

Voting practices

There is a direct relationship between the size of an electorate and the formalization and standardization of its voting practices. In very small voting groups, in which political encounters are face-to-face and the members are bound together by ties of friendship or common experience, political discussion is mostly informal and may not even require formal voting, because the “sense of the meeting” emerges from the group’s deliberations. An issue is discussed until a solution emerges to which all participants can agree or, at least, from which any one participant will not dissent.

By contrast, in modern mass electorates, in which millions of individual votes are aggregated into a collective choice, formalization and standardization of voting practices and vote counting are required to ensure that the outcome is valid, reliable, and legitimate. Validity means that the collective choice in fact expresses the will of the electorate; reliability refers to each vote’s being accurately recorded and effectively counted; and legitimacy means that the criteria of validity and reliability have been met, so that the result of the voting is acceptable and provides authoritative guidelines in subsequent political conduct. In some countries that hold elections, observers have reported irregularities in the counting of votes and have questioned the legitimacy of the results. For example, one study of the U.S. presidential election of 2000 found that millions of votes were uncounted as a result of outdated election equipment, registration errors, and other problems, which led some critics to argue that the outcome was illegitimate.

Routinized and standardized electoral practices in mass electorates were developed beginning in the mid 19th century. Their development was as much a corollary of the growth of rapid communication through telephone and telegraph as of the growth of the electorate and rational insistence on making electoral processes fair and equitable. Nevertheless, electoral practices around the world differ a great deal, depending not just on formal institutional arrangements but even more on a country’s political culture.

Secret voting

Once suffrage rights had been extended to masses of voters who, in theory, were assumed to be equal, open voting was no longer tolerable, precisely because it could and often did involve undue influence, ranging from hidden persuasion and bribery to intimidation, coercion, and punishment. Equality, at least in voting, was not something given but something that had to be engineered; the secrecy of the vote was a first and necessary administrative step toward the one person, one vote principle. Equality in voting was possible only if each vote was formally independent of every other vote, and this suggested the need for strict secrecy.

Often called the Australian ballot because of its use in the Australian states of Victoria and South Australia, secret voting gradually was adopted as the norm. Its eventual adoption was largely due to increased literacy and, at the cultural level, to the spread of individualistic norms of privacy and anonymity to certain classes of the population, notably peasants and workers. Traditionally, these groups took their cues from those they accepted as superiors, or from their peers. Secret voting required learning to free oneself as a citizen from customary associations and from pressures for conformity. Even in the contemporary world, developing countries with low literacy rates and with strong ties to tradition were slow to adopt secret voting.

Secret voting dramatically reduces the possibility of undue influence on the voter. Without it, influence can range from the outright purchase of votes to social chastisement or economic sanctions. Although laws exist in most countries to prohibit and punish the purchase or sale of votes, the introduction of secret voting has not wholly eliminated bribery.

Informal social pressures on the voter are probably unavoidable and, in some respects, useful in reducing political rootlessness and contributing to political stability. However, secrecy in voting permits voters to break away from their social moorings and gives them a considerable degree of independence if they wish to take advantage of this electoral freedom. As a result, it becomes ever more difficult for interest groups—whether labour unions, farmers’ organizations, commercial or industrial associations, ethnic leadership groups, or even criminal syndicates—to “deliver the vote.” The extent to which “deviant voting” occurs depends partly on the degree of rigidity in the social structure. In countries where caste or class barriers are strong or where traditional social, economic, religious, or regional cleavages remain in place, deviant voting is less likely than in countries where there is significant social mobility and where political conflicts cut across traditional social cleavages.

Balloting

The ballot makes secret voting possible. Its initial use seems to have been as a means to reduce irregularities and deception in elections. However, this objective could be achieved only if the ballot was not supplied by the voter himself, as was the case in much early voting by secret ballot, or by political parties, as is still the case in some countries. Ballot procedures differ widely, ranging from marking the names of preferred candidates to crossing out those not preferred or writing in the names of persons who are not formal candidates. Some ballots require the selection of one or more candidates or parties or both, and others require the preferential ordering of a number of candidates.

It is generally believed that the nature of the ballot influences a voter’s choice. In jurisdictions where electors are called upon to vote not only for higher offices but also for a multitude of local positions and where the election may include propositions in the nature of referenda, the length of the ballot can affect the results. Overwhelmed by a ballot’s length, voters may be discouraged from expressing their preferences for candidates of whom they have not heard, or from deciding on propositions that they do not understand. For example, in some U.S. jurisdictions, participation is often lower in contests for county coroners, tax assessors, and other local positions for which there is often little coverage in the media. Election data show a rapid decline from votes cast for higher offices to those cast for lower offices and referendum-type propositions, a phenomenon referred to as ballot roll-off.

Ballot position also has an effect on the votes cast for particular candidates, especially in the absence of cues as to party affiliation or other identifications. The first position on the ballot may be favoured, and on long ballots both first and last names may benefit, with candidates in the middle of the ballot suffering slightly. Ballot position is likely to have its greatest impact in nonpartisan elections, primaries, and elections for minor offices.

The manner in which candidates are listed—by party column or by office bloc—is likely to affect election outcomes. On party-column ballots, it is possible to vote a “straight ticket” for all of a party’s candidates by entering a single mark, though voting for individual candidates is usually possible. Conversely, on the office-bloc ballot, voters choose individual candidates grouped by office rather than party, which discourages voting exclusively for members of one party, though some jurisdictions that use the office-bloc ballot allow voters to cast a straight ticket.

Electoral results also can be dramatically affected when some voters find the ballot difficult to use or understand. Indeed, a study in the U.S. state of Florida found that an allegedly confusing ballot design in one county and improperly punched ballots across the state may well have been critical to the overall outcome of the national presidential election in 2000. The analysis, which highlighted the problems associated with various voting methods and the disparate distribution of voting technologies according to socioeconomic status (i.e., wealthier areas generally had more advanced technology and fewer invalidated ballots), spurred extensive debate about election reform.

The type of ballot can have important consequences for the operation of government, especially in systems with separated powers and federal territorial organization. If different offices are controlled by different parties, the governmental process may be marked by greater conflict than would otherwise be the case.

The introduction of voting machines and computer technology has not substantially changed the balloting process, though it generally has made it faster and more economical. Voting machines are not without problems, in that they may marginally depress the level of voting owing to improper use, a problem that can be overcome through improved machines and voter education.

Compulsory voting

In some countries, notably Australia and Belgium, electoral participation is legally required, and nonvoters can face fines. The concept of compulsory voting reflects a strain in democratic theory in which voting is considered not merely a right but a duty. Its purpose is to ensure the electoral equality of all social groups. However, whether created through laws or through social pressure, it is doubtful that high voter turnout is a good indication of an electorate’s capability for intelligent social choice. On the other hand, high rates of abstention or differential rates of abstention by different social classes are not necessarily signs of satisfaction with governmental processes and policies and in fact may indicate the contrary.

Electoral abuses

Corrupt electoral practices are not limited to bribery or voter intimidation. They include disseminating scurrilous rumours and false campaign propaganda, tampering with election machinery by stuffing ballot boxes with fraudulent returns, counting or reporting the vote dishonestly, and disregarding electoral outcomes by incumbent officeholders (e.g., by mobilizing the military to thwart an election loss). The existence of these practices depends more on a population’s adherence to political civility and the democratic ethos than on legal prohibitions and sanctions.

The integrity of the electoral process can be maintained by a variety of devices and practices, including a permanent and up-to-date register of voters and procedures designed to make the registration process as simple as possible. In most jurisdictions elections are held on a single day rather than on staggered days. Polling hours in all localities are generally the same, and opening and closing hours are fixed and announced, so that voters have an equal opportunity to participate. Polling stations are operated by presumably disinterested government officials or polling clerks under governmental supervision. Political party agents or party workers are given an opportunity to observe the polling process, which enables them to challenge irregularities and prevent abuses. Efforts are made to maintain order in polling stations, directly through police protection or indirectly through such practices as closing bars and liquor stores. The act of voting itself takes place in voting booths to protect privacy. Votes are counted and often recounted by tellers, who are watched by party workers to ensure an honest count. The transmission of voting results from local polling stations to central election headquarters is safeguarded and checked.

Participation in elections

Electoral participation rates depend on many factors, including the type of electoral system, the social groupings to which voters belong, the voters’ personalities and beliefs, their places of residence, and a host of other idiosyncratic factors.

The level and type of election have a great impact on the rate of electoral participation. Electoral turnout is greater in national than in state or provincial elections, and greater in the latter than in local elections. If local elections are held concurrently with provincial or national elections, generally a higher voter turnout is achieved than for nonconcurrent elections. Whether an election is partisan or nonpartisan also affects turnout, as fewer people participate in nonpartisan elections. Supporters of political parties vote more often than those without a partisan identification. Participation is also usually greater in candidate elections than in noncandidate elections such as referenda. There is evidence that elections based on proportional representation have higher electoral turnouts than majority or plurality elections. Voter turnout tends to be depressed in noncompetitive or safe electoral districts and elevated in competitive ones. The perceived closeness of an electoral contest and the degree of ideological polarization between parties or candidates can affect the competitiveness of the election and consequently its turnout. The frequency of elections is also related to voter participation, as fewer people tend to participate in countries where elections are more frequent.

Technicalities in the electoral law may disenfranchise many potential voters. For example, people who change their legal residence may temporarily lose their vote because of residence requirements for voters in their new electoral district. Complicated voter-registration procedures, combined with a high level of geographic mobility, significantly reduce the size of the active electorate in the United States, whereas in many other countries the size of the electorate is maximized by government-initiated registration immediately prior to an election. Voter registration in the United States is largely left to the initiative of individuals and political parties, though attempts to increase voter registration were made in the 1990s through the implementation of “motor-voter laws,” which allowed citizens to register to vote when they received or renewed their driver’s licenses.

Relatively low levels of electoral participation are associated with low levels of education, occupational status, and income. Those groups in society that have been most recently enfranchised also tend to vote at lower rates. For a significant period of time in the 20th century, women voted less frequently than men, though the difference had been erased by the end of the century in most countries. The rates of participation of racial minorities are generally lower than those of majority groups, and members of the working class vote less frequently than members of the middle class. In many countries, participation by young people is significantly lower than that of older people.

The failure of certain types of people to vote in elections has important implications. Most analyses have found that if all eligible voters cast ballots, the balance of electoral power would favour the recently enfranchised and less-privileged members of society.

A small group of people are conscientious nonvoters. Others, perceiving the vote more as an instrument of censure than of support, may not vote because they are satisfied with the current government. This group of voluntary nonvoters is also small, however. In fact, nonvoters generally are less satisfied with the political status quo than are voters. The vote is a rather blunt and ineffectual instrument for expressing dissatisfaction, and nonvoting is more likely to be symptomatic of alienation from the political system than of satisfaction with it.

A number of random factors influence individual participation in specific elections. Election campaigns vary in their intensity. A crisis atmosphere may induce a large number of people to vote on one occasion, whereas on another the chance to vote for an extremist candidate may increase the participation of the normally uninterested. Even the weather can affect election turnout.

Voter participation varies from country to country. For example, approximately half of the voting-age population participates in presidential elections in the United States. In contrast, many European countries have participation rates exceeding 80 percent. Even within Europe, however, participation varies significantly. For example, post-World War II Italy has averaged around 90 percent, whereas less than 40 percent of the electorate participates in elections in Switzerland. Research has suggested a long-term decline in turnout at national elections in western democracies since the 1970s; it seems most likely that this is a consequence of partisan dealignment (i.e., a weakening of partisan identification), the erosion of social cleavages based on class and religion, and increasing voter discontent.

Influences on voting behaviour

The electoral choices of voters are influenced by a range of factors, especially social-group identity, which helps to forge enduring partisan identification. In addition, voters are to a greater or lesser extent susceptible to the influence of more short-term and contingent factors such as campaign events, issues, and candidate appeals. In particular, the perceived governing competence of candidates and political parties often weighs heavily on voters’ choices.

Research suggests that, through partisan dealignment, the proportion of voters in Western democracies who retain their long-term partisan identities has been reduced. In conjunction with the declining impact of social-group influences, voter choice is now more heavily affected by short-term factors relevant to specific election campaigns. This shift from long-term predisposition to short-term evaluation has been facilitated in part by the phenomenon of “cognitive mobilization,” a supposed enhancement of the political independence and intelligence of voters who are both better educated and better informed than earlier generations. Nevertheless, many independents and nonvoters are poorly informed politically and relatively uninterested and uninvolved in politics. Whether cognitively mobilized or not, however, independent voters are often a decisive factor in elections. If elections are to be competitive, and if control of the government is to alternate between parties or coalitions of parties, then some voters must switch party support from election to election. New voters and independent voters, therefore, provide a vital source of change in democratic politics.